Psychological Thriller
5 Great Thrillers That Deliver the Social Commentary
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Our goal with all of our books is always to write something fun and fast-paced, but it also must touch on certain themes like privilege, racism and the inequality of our justice system because that’s the reality of the world we live in. That’s our experience and there’s no way to avoid it. We want…
Passionate Distortions: Patricia Highsmith and the Female Protagonist
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What is it about the work of Patricia Highsmith that attracts some readers as powerfully as it repels others? I’m in the first group: I fell under the spell of her weird, chilling, compelling voice the first time I read her. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I went to the bookstore and randomly…
The More the Deadlier: Multiple Points of View in Mysteries and Thrillers
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When I first came up with the idea for Five Bad Deeds, I didn’t imagine telling the story from so many different points of view. I had my main character, Ellen Walsh, all fleshed out, and Five Bad Deeds was supposed to be very much her story. However, best laid plans often go awry. See,…
What Makes a Forest Such a Seductive Setting for Fiction?
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The woods have been a popular setting in literature for centuries, from the Grimm Brothers to today’s bestsellers, but what makes a forest such a seductive setting for fiction? When I started putting together ideas for my second novel, What Waits in the Woods, I turned to this interesting and ubiquitous setting. But why? What…
How to Write Fiction about True Crime
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If you are going to write a sensational, news-worthy crime story into your fiction, you have a few models for how to proceed. First, there is the Gone Girl model. Use a real-life crime as your inspiration—in Flynn’s case, the disappearance of Laci Peterson—and take liberties. Change names, character backgrounds, and crucial plot elements. Twist…
The Rise of “Mom-Noir”
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It was a few weeks in that I realized why I was finding motherhood such a shock to the system. As I leaned over the sink to tearfully rinse another streak of projectile vomit from my unwashed hair, I wondered why my expectations of the newborn phase had been so unrealistic. The answer, I realized…
‘UNSUB’ Is Mostly Forgotten, But It Launched a New Era of Crime Procedurals
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Back when I was a newspaper reporter, I was hanging around our local prosecutor’s office when an investigator for the prosecutor was fondly recalling his days as a police officer and how cops would interrogate someone by holding their head underwater in the toilet in a police holding cell. I thought of that moment when…
Never Vacation With Old Friends: The Locked-Room Thriller Problem
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People love to share vacation photos on social media. Some try to act nonchalant about their expensive getaways. Others aim to impress. The more remote the location, the better. Wait, you’ve never been to New Caledonia? You should go. It’s beautiful this time of year. That’s a real comment I saw on a post. I…